4/09/2010 @ 11:53AM

Kyrgyzstan's Corruption Instigated Revolution

What’s behind the revolution in Kyrgyzstan? Its people were fed up with the graft, nepotism and authoritarian ways of deposed president Kurmanbek Bakiyev. The irony is that Bakiyev rose to power riding the same wave of public discontent and revulsion. It enabled him to depose Askar Akayev, his equally corrupt predecessor, five years ago.

Today, however, the price of revolution is higher. Bakiyev’s shoot-to-kill orders on Wednesday left up to 100 people dead and 450 wounded in the capital of Bishkek. Only about five people died in the 2005 Tulip Revolution.

Great powers are looking at Kyrgyzstan with apprehension. The United States, Russia and China all have important interests there, from the supply of Afghanistan NATO forces to water resources. Richer and more authoritarian central Asian neighbors are also anxious about the bloody display of “people power.” Such eruptions may endanger a few local dictators.

The crux of the Second Kyrgyz Revolution is the quality of governance and use of force by corrupt authoritarians against domestic opposition. The new Kyrgyz government and international bodies are likely to investigate Bakiyev’s culpability in killing the protesters, as well as his shady business deals. This will send a chilling message to dictators in the region and beyond: Beware of how you rule and how you protect your thrones.

Many late night meetings in authoritarians’ chanceries, from Ashgabat to Yangon, and from Moscow to Minsk, are dedicated these days to “lessons learned” on what went wrong (from their point of view) in Bishkek.

The corruption in Kyrgyzstan is mind-boggling. President Akaev gave his son contracts to supply jet fuel for the nation’s airport. President Bakiyev, in turn, put his young son Maksim in charge of the impoverished nation’s development agency. Maksim signed opaque deals with China and allegedly transferred assets to overseas tax havens. Murky privatization schemes under Bakiyev involved electric utilities with suspicious ownership structures.

Yet there was enough civic space in Kyrgyzstan for the opposition to air its grievances. Instead of a dialogue, however, Bakiyev arrested opposition leaders. Angry supporters attacked government buildings, first in the provinces, then in the capital.

This was no Tulip Revolution. It was black with anger and red with blood. Yet the body count would have been much lower had Bakiyev not ordered his elite troops to shoot the protesters dead.

The shoot-to-kill order was a play taken from Moscow’s playbook. Since 2004 Russian “political technologists” have repeated ad nauseum that regimes in the former Soviet Union need to shoot to kill to protect themselves. These were their “lessons learned” from the 2003 Rose Revolution in Georgia and 2004 Orange Revolution in Ukraine.

Applying the classic Machiavellian dictum that the Prince needs to be feared, Moscow believed in building up pro-regime SWAT teams and security services–at home and among the allies. But this costs money. Lots of money. Kyrgyzstan was too poor–and the regime’s forces too small–to quell the revolt.

It did not help that some of Bakiyev’s opponents, including current Prime Minister pro tem Roza Otunbayeva, were high-level members of both Akayev’s and Bakiyev’s administrations and knew many officers personally.

Now that the regime has changed, there is much work for the U.S. and NATO to do. Washington must establish a dialogue with Otunbayeva and her government. That shouldn’t be hard. Foggy Bottom already knows her well. She was ambassador to Washington and London, foreign minister twice, and prime minister pro tem in 2005. She has a reputation as being a clean politician–a rarity in the region.

In the interest of promoting regional stability, the U.S. and other NATO members should join hands with the new government to fight corruption in Bishkek. But our top priority should be to make sure the Manas air base remains open. The base is a critical link in the supply chain serving allied forces in Afghanistan.

This, too, should not be too difficult. Despite prior opposition, Moscow gave its blessing to keeping Manas open a year ago, in response to pleadings by President Obama. And, given her country’s desperate need for cash, Otunbayeva has already promised to negotiate over the base. Washington is likely to offer Bishkek development assistance, as well as anticorruption advice and technical assistance.

There are other local issues where the U.S. and Europe see eye-to-eye with Russia and China. All oppose the rise of Islamic fundamentalism in the Fergana Valley in the south of Kyrgyzstan, and none wish to see Kyrgyzstan devolve into a failed state. Overall, Russia and China may have a harder time than the West in adjusting to the new, more liberal leadership. Bakiyev had promised China new, lucrative contracts, including a railway, and possibly access to water. Russia views Beijing’s penetration into central Asia with suspicion–and justifiably so. The Han dynasty influenced the region for a millennium before Russian troops arrived 150 years ago–a blink of an eye by central Asian standards.

As they met to sign the New START nuclear treaty in Prague, Obama and Medvedev likely took time to compare notes on how to handle the current crisis in Bishkek. The realities of geopolitics tend to impinge even amid the often irrational exuberance sparked by an arms-control ceremony.

Ariel Cohen, Ph.D., is Senior Research Fellow in Russian and Eurasian studies and
International Energy
Policy at the Davis Institute for International Policy at The Heritage Foundation.